Mister Carnegie’s “Libary”

Oh yes, we had brushed elbows with writers and artists and had seen where great and important people lived, including Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Mother gave talks on this at high school assembly, at Thursday Club, at the Daughters of Susanna Wesley Missionary Society, and, of course, to the library board. Soon afterward she got a raise in salary. She now made sixty-five dollars a month. The day the library board notified her of this salary increase I noticed her looking benevolently at the portrait of Mr. Carnegie. I am sure she was thanking him for the raise. Then she looked sadly over in the corner by the steps where always before Ben Jacks’s battered old hat and frayed coat would be hanging, and I know that she felt something important was gone from the library. I think Mr. Carnegie felt this, too. His picture was looking darker and grimmer and lonelier than ever, but still aristocratic. …